Diet Willpower Weakens At 3.23pm

22/03/2011 18:35
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Updated
22 May 2015

Christine Morgan
MyDaily UK

As everyone who's ever been on a diet knows, the mid-afternoon snack cravings are the worst. You've been good all day and had a healthy breakfast and lunch, but it's hours before dinner and your willpower has waned to virtually zero. Before you know it, you're tucking in to a bag of crisps or helping yourself to the office biscuit tin.

Resistance to chocolate is at its lowest at 3.23pm, say experts. Photo: Getty Images

It's a scenario that's well known to those trying to lose weight. And now researchers have pinpointed the most dangerous time: 3.23pm.

The survey, carried out for the Atkins Diet, suggests mid-afternoon is the time when most of us are more likely to break our good intentions. That's because 62) and late evening (22 of the 1,250 slimmers who participated, with 26 say colleagues who take treats into work help tip them over the edge.

Between 3pm and 3.30pm was the most dangerous time for slimmers, the survey suggests, with 3.23pm calculated as the mean time for ditching the diet.

As a result, diet experts advise slimmers to watch the clock if they want to beat their cravings. If you're aware that you're susceptible to breaking your diet at a certain point of the day, it means you can take steps to avoid it.